We were happy to see that our poetry editor Heidi Czerwiec had a poem published in the most recent issues of Tinderbox Poetry Journal 2.5 (2016). The poem is titled “I Never Saw a Goddess Go” and you can read it here.

A single poem, on a single post might be a bit lonely, so we decided to partner it with a poem that name-checks Alan Turing, Schrodinger, and Watson, Franklin, and Crick, in its first seven lines: “Evolution” by Linda Bierds because we’re thinking about the theme of the 2016 University of North Dakota Writers Conference: “The Art of Science” (and the theme for our last NDQ issue!).

As we were surfing around the NDQ Archive, I was drawn to the lovely cover of the Spring 2002 issue. The colors, even in the low resolution of the archive reminded me of the cover of Miles Davis’s Sketches of Spain which is not only one of my favorite albums and was recorded across the winter and early spring of 1959 and 1960. The cover reproduces a intaglio/serigraph of Kim Fink from the University of North Dakota titled West is West. Kim Fink is retiring after this year, and, indeed, heading west. There was a nice write up on his and his work in NDQ’s local newspaper.

The cover, Kim Fink, and a poem by Robert Robbins titled “Cranial Facial Reconstruction, 18-Month-Old Boy.” Not only is poem gruesome, but it is scientifically gruesome and the image of decay and reconstruction seems to be appropriate for a springlike late February. 

Bill Caraher, Associate Professor, Department of History, University of North Dakota